


Xavia and the Maiden of the Welcoming Wood

by aliencupcake



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Cats, F/F, Magic, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 06:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13607259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliencupcake/pseuds/aliencupcake
Summary: A sorceress meets someone surprising in the woods. It's an odd encounter, to say the least.





	Xavia and the Maiden of the Welcoming Wood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> Happy Chocolate Box! I hope you enjoy this story. :D
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, Koraki!

The Welcoming Wood in the Land of Rainbows and Happiness sparkled. Sunlight dappled the ground under the cover of bright green leaves, the surroundings echoing with cheerful birdsong and the chatter of furry creatures. Xavia wanted to burn the whole place down. She would have done it, too, without a thought, if she hadn’t needed something from this cursedly joyful place.

Her familiar, Fluffy, had fallen sick, and no proper sorceress would go about her business with a cat in less than perfect condition. That was a breach of etiquette, and cats in general didn’t deserve that treatment. Those squirrels crossing her path, on the other hand….

Before Xavia could decide what spell was best for shooing away a squirrel, she caught noise of a far more human kind. Clear notes floated towards her on the air, like crystals in the form of a woman’s voice, a maddeningly recognizable voice.

It couldn’t be.

“Why are you singing? In the woods? Is that befitting a queen?” Xavia spoke to the image before her like it were a mirage rather than a person. Queen Yessica shouldn’t have been wandering the woods like she was still a feral orphan girl.

“Why not? Can’t the Queen do as she likes?” The image spoke, revealing itself to be Queen Yessica in a simple yellow cotton dress, long black hair unbound. 

Though curvier than before, Yessica looked much as she had when Xavia had been an assistant to the sorceress who had bewitched Yessica those many years ago. She had the same golden skin, wide brown eyes and perpetually upturned mouth, the same soft-focus haze that had followed her before. As far as Xavia knew, the haze was no enchantment, though she had her doubts.

“Not if she’s as invested in her subjects’ happiness as this one is rumored to be,” said Xavia.

“A moderate vacation of less than a day is hardly a political crisis.”

A bluebird sat on Yessica’s shoulder, chirping as if it agreed with her statement. Bluebirds didn’t have the brains to form opinions on anything. What did they know of the sense in taking vacations?

“Saccharine singing is a crisis for my ears.” The world showed some mercy, and the bluebird flew away.

“Then you ought to see a healer if your ears are so easily troubled. I happen to be experienced in that area.”

“Oh yes, you’re the Healer Queen and all that. Isn’t that why you’re Queen of this magical land in the first place?”

“That, and I convinced the previous ruler to abdicate, without resorting to mind magic.”

“Oh, you would have used mind magic if you’d had it.”

Mind magic was a practical way of getting things you needed, like free rent. The rent in this land wasn’t unreasonable, but a sorceress never paid rent if she could help it. It was beneath Xavia’s dignity, as was spending any more time than necessary watching Yessica’s face. Xavia already knew Yessica’s face and the basic outline of her; there was no need to wonder more about any it, nor any practical reason to imagine how Yessica might look without that silly dress. There was even less reason to want to try it on herself, no sense in imagining if it would look as good on her. Xavia was darker and cooler than Yessica, which she hadn’t dwelt upon at all, never.

“That would be cheating,” said Yessica.

“Cheating is a royal tradition.” 

“Maybe where you’re from.” 

Yessica never stopped radiating sunshine even as she insulted Xavia’s homeland, not that Xavia had all that much fondness for the land that had exiled her. 

“You have a millipede on your head,” said Xavia. It was hardly the wittiest comeback, but it had the moderate benefit of being true. Yessica did indeed have a bright pink bug crawling around in her hair, and perhaps pointing it out would keep her from resuming her singing with that frustratingly melodious voice. Millipedes weren’t the sort of subject feral forest children turned royalty would wish to sing about. It was all birds and cute fuzzy mammals.

“Oh, I see you’ve met Bobby?”

“You named it?”

“Surely you’re familiar with the idea of keeping pets?”

Fluffy chose that moment to make herself known, purring at Xavia’s feet before walking over to Yessica and purring even more loudly at _her_ feet. Traitor. Xavia had come all the way to these cursed woods to find the plant that would cure her, and now she was purring at someone else. All the best purrs were supposed to be for Xavia.

To make matters worse, Fluffy turned the same pink shade as Yessica’s millipede, swishing her tail as she went from a respectably impossible stygian blue to that abominable pink. If Fluffy were able to spite Xavia in such a way, she had to be well again. The crushed herb had worked.

“Fluffy.” X narrowed her eyes in Fluffy’s direction, which, predictably, did less than nothing.

“It seems your cat is fond of me.”

“There is no accounting for taste. Fluffy’s merely distracted by your shiny hair. Living things seem to like your hair.” Xavia did not count herself among them, despite an entirely detached aesthetic appreciation for that shade of brown-black.

“She takes after her mistress, I see.”

“Unbound hair is unseemly.”

“I didn’t know you were so concerned with propriety. That’s quite the turnaround.”

“I can set this wood on fire, you know.” Xavia conjured a ball of violet flame in her hand.

“Pretty. Like you, when you’re not trying to kill people.”

Yessica closed the gap between them, graceful as ever, and kissed Xavia on the lips. They touched for less than a second but Yessica’s touch burned bright enough to last millennia. She pulled away before Xavia could speak. 

Xavia still held the flame in her palm. She did not deploy it.


End file.
